Round Trip Distance: 9 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 4477 - 4738 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 7 hrs. 30 mins.
Trailhead: Lower Road Canyon
Fee: $5/person/day
Attractions: cliff dwellings, pictographs
Lower Road Canyon is located in the Cedar Mesa Area of the Bears Ears National Monument west of Bluff, Utah. This post covers the first 4 mile stretch of the canyon where 3 cliff dwellings and some nice pictographs can be found. Except for getting through a tangle of tamarisks right at the start and a couple of other tangles the hiking is mostly very easy.
By far the best approach is from US-163 west of Bluff, Utah by finding your way to the Comb Wash Road and turning north. Follow the Comb Wash Road for 2.3 miles and turn left onto the Snow Flat Road. There are several primitive campsites along the first part of the Comb Wash Road that can accommodate RV trailers.
Continue on the Snow Flat Road for just over 4 miles to where the road to Lower Road Canyon will be on the left. The turn off is very sharp and you will probably have to turn around in the middle of the road to make it. This photo was taken looking back toward Comb Ridge after already having turned around. During dry conditions the road up to this point is normally suitable for 2WD highway vehicles.
The most that you can drive is another half mile to where the road comes to an end when it reaches the wash of Lower Road Canyon. The last couple hundred feet are high clearance 4WD and there isn't much room to turn around. You might consider parking at the top of the hill and walking the last quarter mile. Once you begin hiking the best route is to go straight through the tamarisks to the south side of the wash where the brush is shorter and further apart.
After about a half mile you can begin hiking in the wash itself where the going is very easy. (All distances are measured from the wash at the end of the Road Canyon access road.)
Near the 1.3 mile point there is a sharp bend to the right where there is a spring. At that point you have to work your way around and through the lush vegetation and then re-enter the wash. After another tenth of a mile you will come to another spring. At this point leave the wash and gain the higher ground on the right where you will see a fence.
At the 2 mile point the trail makes a dog leg to get around a side wash. In another couple tenths of a mile there is a fork where going to the right stays above the wash on a bench and leads around to a large panel of pictographs. The left fork drops down near the wash where it continues on up the canyon.
The pictographs can easily be seen from the main trail and photographed if you have a good zoom lens. If not you will probably want to follow the trail along the bench to get right below them for closer shots. There are a couple of faint images in the panel that display Barrier Canyon Style components.
About a half mile past the pictographs there is a well worn path that can be seen leading up to a ruin that is out on the end of a ridge that juts out into the canyon. There are also a few pictographs at this location although we didn't get close enough for any good photos.
From there it is about another mile of easy scenic canyon hiking to the next pair of cliff dwellings. The first one is small and sits high enough above the trail in the canyon wall to be considered inaccessible. A person could scramble up to it but there wouldn't be any good reason for doing so.
A few hundred feet past that a long chain of ruins begins that are all down much lower. The rooms that were built along the base of the cliff have all fallen into piles of rubble but be sure to examine the cliff carefully for some small pictographs.
The rest of the ruins are all in almost perfect condition. A couple of them have interesting little porches build in front of their doors.
We were pleased to find that these ruins were all down about head high on the cliff. As we were hiking from the trailhead we had been wondering if when we finally go there whether they would all be up high on the cliff and hard to get to or even if they existed at all. (We found the ruins marked on an old topo map which is usually pretty reliable.) This room has an almost natural looking porch and a handful of pictographs.
There are four of these rooms that are almost side-by-side.
There is also a granary that is higher up on the cliff.
Small pictographs are found along the cliff above the ruins. Some are on sheltered lips of rock and others are on the underneath sides facing downward.
These two images are looking downward from below an overhang in the cliff. Just to the left of the figure on the left there is a lobed circle making us wonder if this wasn't a type of depiction of the Warrior Twins.
This lanky figure immediately brought to mind that of the eponymous figure at the Falling Man Site in Nevada's Gold Butte National Monument.
Good examples of pottery and a lot of lithic scatter can be found all over the side of the hill below the ruins. Be sure to leave it all where you find it for others to enjoy.
The key to having an enjoyable hike in Lower Road Canyon is to find the established trails and stay on them. Other than the mile of so stretch of the wash before the first spring the wash is mostly unhikeable.
If you think of getting to the trailhead by driving the full length of the Snow Flat Road from UT 261 you will spend a monotonous couple of hours doing so as you crawl over one rocky outcrop after another. The Snow Flat Road is okay enough to drive end to end once or twice maybe but not if you are in any sort of hurry. Also, driving the Comb Wash Road from UT-95 to get to the lower end of the Snow Flat Road requires a high clearance 4WD vehicle in a couple of places so the best and fastest route is, like we said, to come in from the Bluff direction. All that aside, Lower Road Canyon, in our opinion, is well worth the time and effort.
If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is 'Take a hike'.
